Sign o' the times

The Telegram's intrepid boy-reporter @TelegramJames captured this list of donors/attendees at the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador fundraising dinner tonight (click to enlarge):

I Here's who's paying a ridiculous amount of money to eat dinner with the Liberals. #nlpoli pic.twitter.com/L2Nr8juGJi
— James McLeod (@TelegramJames) May 12, 2014

The corporate donors listed, or their predecessor companies or subsidiaries, have contributed a total of nearly $1.2-million to the PC Party of Newfoundland and Labrador or its candidates since calendar year 2004 — the first full year that the moribund PC regime was in power — to 2012, the most recent year for which Elections Newfoundland and Labrador has published data. (Some donor data for 2011 may or may not be missing; the sheer incompetence of Elections NL makes it impossible to say for certain.)

Over the same period, the same set of donors have collectively given approximately $288,000 to the opposition Liberals. (They have contributed just over $4,000 to the NDP and $400 to Labrador Party candidates.)

That history is summarized in this cleverly colour-coded chart:

Not only have these donors been more generous to the incumbent PCs in the aggregate, their individual donations have also heavily favoured the Tories: 630 individual contributions to the PC Party or candidates have averaged $1904 a pop, compared to 274 contributions averaging $1047 to Liberals... an amount inflated slightly by the inclusion of 14 contributions to Dwight Ball's leadership campaign, disclosed voluntarily outside the operation of the Elections Act.

It is especially fascinating to observe, on a very close reading, the number of donors who, since 2004, did not give a single red copper to any party other than the governing, moribund, Progressive Conservatives.